St Albans Athletic Club Under-20 javelin thrower Mitchell Dutton took home the title at the tenth International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation World Junior Championships at Stoke Mandeville.

Dutton was originally lined up to compete at the IWAS championships in the Under-20 age group, but British Athletics took the decision to enter him in the Under-23 group to give him stiffer competition.

Competing last Tuesday, Dutton’s first throw saw him achieve a new personal best of 37.79m as he lined up against athletes hailing from USA, Estonia, Czech Republic, Great Britain and Kuwait.

The St Albans athlete then followed up with a massive throw of 39.73m, increasing his newly-gained PB by almost two metres, before throwing two more over 39m and a final two 36m throw.

With the competition comprising of a number of athletes from different classifications, the athletes had a long wait for results to be adjudicated by judges and points allocated on distance and class.

Dutton took the title by 30 points – beating second-placed fellow British athlete and Czech Republic thrower by 56 points in third place.

Malcolm Wallace, Dutton’s coach of five years, outlined the thrower’s training program leading up to his magnificent win.

Wallace said: “Originally we were informed that he would be throwing at two in the afternoon and our training program was designed around this time but with two weeks to go we found out the age group change, this meant that we had to commence training at eight in the morning. “We also changed the pattern of his throwing as normally we would get a safe throw in with his first throw and then develop of the next five throws.

“We took the decision to go all out with his first throw and maintain that strategy all the way through.”

During the last two years Dutton has climbed up the world rankings and is second for discus, fourth for javelin and ninth for shotput.